The Ray Marshall Center entered into an interlocal agreement with the City of Austin for process development, data collection, and analysis of youth-focused programs in science, technology, engineering, math, creative, and entrepreneurship workforce development programs.

Ray Marshall Center researchers will work with stakeholders, workforce organizations, local businesses, and local school districts, using a collective impact model framework, to establish regional baseline metrics to classify and assess current youth focused programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Creative, and Entrepreneurship (STEM-CE) for study and careers. Through the course of this assessment, the RMC will develop appropriate measurement instruments and techniques, produce a report describing current relevant activities, and propose methods and processes for the future evaluation of youth STEM-CE programming.

This assessment of Austin STEM-CE programming will provide insight as to how scarce public resources can be leveraged to secure private participation in the development of a future pipeline of workforce, filled by the city’s current youth in poverty, which will connect to quality jobs in Austin’s future economy. Findings will be used to propose policy recommendations for Mayor and Council to consider that will enable program development or expansion to properly encourage students from backgrounds in poverty to enter into STEM-CE fields of study and careers. Some goals of future STEM-CE interventions may include changing attitudes about STEM-CE fields among students participating in such related programming, as well as improving their academic performance in STEM-CE subjects.

The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will partner with the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to design, implement, and evaluate interventions that adhere to the Cairo consensus of ensuring women’s reproductive health and sexual rights (RHSR) and the rights of the vulnerable youth and refugee populations in the north while reducing population growth in accordance with the SDGs and Jordan’s needs. We propose to do this by using a combination of culturally sensitive anthropological practices and behavioral economic approaches.

A critical objective of this effort is to identify interventions that produce the desired outcomes cost-effectively, in order that these interventions may be institutionalized within Jordanian ministries and CSOs/NGOs and, therefore, more likely to be replicated throughout the country and sustained over time.

There is a growing base of evidence demonstrating that sector strategies can produce positive outcomes for lower-income workers in terms of employment, income, and career advancement outcomes. At the same time, despite gains in recent decades, significant racial gaps in median income and labor market participation persist, with African Americans and Latinos working and earning less, on average, that Non-Hispanic Whites. As such, sector initiatives would appear to have promise as an important tool for advancing racial equity. Yet, the majority of sector partnerships presently discuss their work as “population neutral,” leading some observers to ask whether the lack of a more explicit racial equity goal among more sector initiatives is a missed opportunity.

The Ray Marshall Center, along with Workforce Matters (a consulting firm that provides innovative strategies and workforce solutions), are proposing to launch a partnership to explore via a survey and series of interviews 1) If and how existing sector partnerships are addressing race equity issues; and 2) The most promising practices among those initiatives that are doing so.

ACC proposes to establish an Office of Student Money Management (ACC-OSMM) – the office’s mission would be to give a stronger foundation to students’ academic and career goals and successes by helping them take charge of their financial futures.Two of the inaugural activities of ACC-OSMM will be:

to establish a system of sending text message reminders regarding annual Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) renewal to first-year college students who are already receiving financial aid, and

to enhance the main tool (Degree Map Online) that ACC counselors use to advise students to include ‘real time’ personalized financial aid information. This will improve integration of financial aid and loan awareness into student conversations with academic advisors and counselors.

ACC hopes to demonstrate that the activities of ACC-OSMM would be linked to improvements in measures of student success such as: graduation rate, time to completion, retention/persistence, and cohort loan default rate (CDR). ACC will partner with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to perform an evaluation, both formative and summative, on the effectiveness of these efforts on the student outcome measures of interest. Both types of evaluations provide actionable information about the success of the intervention while each successive cohort of recipients is in the process of receiving services, allowing for relatively rapid reflection and program modification as needed by ACC staff. Both evaluations are intended to measure the implementation, aggregate outcomes, and the impact of these efforts on Full Time First Time in College (FTFIC) loan or Pell grant receiving students’ graduation rates, 3-year Cohort Default Rates (CDR), retention rates, and fall to fall persistence for those who are Pell eligible. A host of intermediate steps related to these outcomes will also be measured.

The Ray Marshall Center (RMC), in collaboration with the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), will be evaluating the efforts of the Mid-South Community College-led Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT) grant for the Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce (GMACW). GMACW’s mission is to help solve Greater Memphis’ skills gap by: aligning training and education programs with employers’ skill requirements, and with each other; connecting employers to cost-effective training and hiring support, and; driving coordination and improved outcomes among providers that serve job candidates.

While CSW is conducting the implementation (formative) evaluation, RMC is carrying out a quasi-experimental comparison cohort (summative) evaluation to measure the impact of these strategies. The impact evaluation conducted by RMC will seek to gauge the “value-added” from these enhanced training pathways.

The goals of the ADARE-SNAP study will be to analyze the interaction of SNAP caseload and recipient household composition dynamics aligned with receipt of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and participation in UI covered employment, and to demonstrate by state-specific approaches and accomplishments how analyses based on longitudinal files of linked confidential state administrative data files can be replicated in other states, and extended and refined by the partners in the consortium states.The Ray Marshall Center will link longitudinal files of administrative records – SNAP administrative data, UI benefits data, and State UI wage records – to understand the sequencing of SNAP and UI applications, factors affecting the duration of SNAP and UI benefits, and the extent to which these patterns of outcomes are affected by the recession.

In collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team of partners, the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) is developing and implementing a sectoral workforce development strategy for low-skilled, low-income parents of children served by early childhood programs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There is emerging evidence that children whose parents hold stable jobs with progressively rising incomes exhibit better academic and behavioral outcomes. RMC and its partners have undertaken a dual-generation approach to poverty reduction that strengthens the investment in early childhood development by equipping Head Start parents with workforce training and gainful employment opportunities. This approach employs a more holistic model than traditional workforce development programs, as it also includes employee counseling and other support services to help parents complete training and adult basic education, retain their jobs, advance in their careers, and become economically self-sufficient. The goal is to develop a sustainable sectoral strategy that can be replicated beyond Tulsa to other communities across the nation.

In the first phase of the project (2008-2009), RMC designed a sectoral job development strategy focused on industries featuring jobs that pay well and provide much-needed employee benefits (e.g., health insurance, annual and sick leave) as well as career advancement opportunities. In April 2009, Community Action Program of Tulsa County launched the pilot, CareerAdvance®, at two Head Start sites in Tulsa involving 15 parents. The components of the CareerAdvance® are 1) GED and college readiness instruction, as needed; 2) skills training in the healthcare sector progressing from Certified Nursing Aide to Licensed Practical Nurse to Registered Nurse; 3) weekly peer support meetings addressing a flexible set of topics (e.g., life skills, work readiness, family finances); 4) conditional cash incentives (up to $3,000 a year) for participants meeting specified benchmarks to reinforce continued participation and help offset foregone earnings; and 5) workforce intermediation between healthcare employers and training institutions provided through Workforce Tulsa. The report on the project’s first year of operation is available at the link below.

In partnership with Harvard University and the University of Oklahoma – Tulsa School of Medicine, a second pilot site was opened in July 2009 at a Tulsa Educare Center. The second pilot, EduCareers, includes all components described above as well as enhanced mental health services for participating households, curriculum enhancements for the children, parent engagement training, and a medical home. The CareerAdvance® project has now been expanded to 2015 with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. RMC and partners at Northwestern and Columbia University have been engaged to provide ongoing on data collection, implementation, and outcomes analysis of project participants.

For more than fifteen years, Travis County has invested between $1-2.5 million in workforce development programs for disadvantaged residents. The purpose of the evaluation is to examine outcomes and impacts for participants in Travis County-funded community-based workforce programs over time and to provide recommendations and support for County and provider staff based on data analysis and best practice research. Seven providers with long standing County contracts have been the focus of an ongoing evaluation of the outcomes and impacts of local workforce services investments led by the Ray Marshall Center since 2006:

American YouthWorks

Austin Academy

Austin Area Urban League

Goodwill Industries of Central Texas

Skillpoint Alliance

Workforce Solutions–Capital Area Workforce Board

Capital IDEA

Researchers at the Ray Marshall Center have produced a series of reports documenting the employment outcomes and impacts for participants from these programs over time. Findings from this evaluation have also been presented to the local workforce board, the County Commissioners Court, and at Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) fall research conferences.

Other Social Services

Recently, the evaluation has expanded to include an analysis of other County-funded social services for disadvantaged residents. The first phase of this evaluation component focuses on analysis of historical Family Support Services (FSS) program data. Specifically, Travis County HHS has asked the RMC to review the evaluation design and methods implemented by BSS (Best Single Source), to create a parallel evaluation of the standard delivery of services (EACO or Emergency Assistance County Only), to help implement the evaluation, and to analyze and report on the results. The second phase of the evaluation will benchmark Travis County’s program with support programs offered by similar counties in Texas and beyond.

The Student Futures Project—formerly known as Creating a Central Texas High School Data Center—is a research partnership of the Ray Marshall Center, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Skillpoint Alliance, and a growing number of Central Texas independent school districts (ISDs). The project is documenting and analyzing the progress of Central Texas high school students as they move onto colleges and careers. It relies on a combination of student surveys and linked administrative records to improve feedback and policy and program alignment for Central Texas ISDs in preparing students for the demands of adulthood and for success in the workplace. The purpose of the Student Futures Project is two-fold: 1) To provide ISDs, postsecondary institutions, and employers with comprehensive, longitudinal research on what high school students are doing after graduation, why they are making these decisions, and how a variety of educational, personal, and financial factors are related to their success in higher education and the workforce; and 2) To offer workshops, seminars, and applied research on best practices and applied research that will assist ISDs, the Education Service Center, and postsecondary institutions to increase the number of regional youth who obtain postsecondary academic and workforce credentials.

Each year the Student Futures Project issues reports on area high school graduates to allow districts and schools to see exactly how their preparation has helped high school students move on to the next phase of their development either in college, training, or the workplace. The reports address the following questions, among others:

• Who is and is not going to college and why?
• Who is and is not going to work and why?
• Who is both working and going to college?

These reports will trace each graduating class as they move through work, postsecondary education and training, and other options for up to four years after graduation. The focus of these reports is to identify trends and practices that best enable students to capitalize on the opportunities they meet after graduation and to ensure that schools have a process for evaluating how they prepare their students for what lies beyond graduation.

Preliminary Year One Findings: January 2006Authors: Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, and Skillpoint AllianceDate: January 2006Publication Type: PowerPoint presentation, 33pp.

This project conducts a child care market rate survey to be used by 28 Local Workforce Development Boards that manage the federal child care program in Texas. The goal is to produce up-to-date, reliable data and information to use in setting maximum reimbursements rates that ensure equal access to child care, thereby maximizing public resources.

Reports Available:

2017 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (June 2017). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2016 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (August 2016). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2015 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (July 2015). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2013 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (June 2014). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2012 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2013). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2011 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2012). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2010 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2011). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2009 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (January 2010). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from Texas Workforce Commission.

2007 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2008). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. 200pp. Copies may be obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.

2006 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2007). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.

2005 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (February 2006). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.

2004 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (January 2005). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.

2003 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey: Final Report (January 2004). The Center for Social Work Research and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, at The University of Texas at Austin. Copies may be obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.